A Game of Payback
by Ichigo Morino
Summary: Grudges die hard, but when Kamio falls victim to a cruel "rematch," Fudoumine deals their own justice. *Light Shinji/Kamio hints.*


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Disclaimer: Neither Prince of Tennis nor any of the characters therein belong to me. They're Takeshi Konomi's. I _do_ own little kid Chisa, but that isn't really worth mentioning, is it?

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Author's Notes/ Warning: Warning first. There is light hinting at Shinji/Kamio. Notes second. This is slightly different from how I intended to have it go, but that's that. Also I fear I might've taken a bit of a liberty with Shinji's character. But just a tad. Maybe, you decide. Does anyone even read this stuff? 

**__**

A Game of Payback

By Ichigo Morino (6.25.03)

Ibu Shinji, 2nd year Fudoumine regular, walked in silence. At his side, he held his racket. He had realized at the last minute that the gut needed adjustment. A couple of days ago he and Kamio had been challenged to a doubles match at the street tennis court. Needless to say, they had emerged triumphant. His racket gut, on the other hand, wasn't as fortunate.

It was in need of changing for a while now, anyway. Tonight was as good a night as any. Even better. They were to go out and practice early in the next morning, all of the Fudoumine regulars. 

The sky above had long darkened; the old man down at the shop had taken his time. Well, it was forgivable. At least he had fixed the gut despite it being his closing time. 

As he walked down the silent street, Shinji closed his eyes and rehearsed a game within his mind's eye. He really wished he had a ball to bounce on his racket, it was too quiet.

Then it came, heavy breathing. Heavy strained breathing in the near distance. He couldn't tell exactly from where, but it wasn't far off. His eyes opened abruptly. Shortly, he was jogging down a long back-alley. At the bottom of the tunnel-like alley, he could see a tall wooden fence, a dead-end. 

He slowed down as his foot hit against a discarded carton box. If he wasn't careful in this dark, he could trip on something more dangerous. The alley became narrow as he went deeper into it. The lamppost's light having long ago cut off, he was left to walk through a heavy darkness.

He could still hear the breathing, and he knew he was coming closer to its origin, but it was lessening slowly. It was growing weaker. Then he stopped. Abruptly. His eyes fastened on the foot of the fence. 

The black jersey made the sprawled figure even more indistinguishable from its equally black surroundings. But Shinji recognized that jersey, he was wearing the same one. A Fudoumine regular's jersey. 

There was more to the figure he recognized. The crimson hair. Once nicely combed, straight crimson hair lay disheveled against the dirty back-alley ground. _Kamio!_

Shinji dropped to his knees, his racket slipping from his hand and landing onto the ground with a light clatter. Kamio's awkwardly twisted body gave a slight shift, letting out a weak groan between strained breaths. 

"Kamio!" Shinji reached out a hand, then stopped. He didn't want to hurt him further, but he had to help him up. He had to get him out of there. 

"…hnnh…Sh…" Kamio ceased trying to move, only continued gasping for air. Despite all this, he struggled to speak. "…Shin…ji…" 

This time Shinji did reach out, and somehow, as carefully as he could, managed to pull Kamio's sprawled body into his arms. "It's me, Kamio…don't move, huh? I'll get you to a hospital." Shinji's mind had taken to reeling. _Who could've done this? Who would be _stupid_ enough to _do_ this?_

"…a…ah." Kamio fell silent, weakly struggling for air. His body was heaving lightly against Shinji. Shinji could feel blood seeping into his own jersey from Kamio, his eyes narrowed. They would pay. But that didn't matter right now. Getting Kamio to the hospital did. 

***

"Tachibana-san—" Shinji spoke into the receiver, without waiting for the person on the other line to respond.

_"Shinji-kun? Hi. I'll get my brother for you." _Ann was on the other line. She seemed to get the message though. It was urgent.

"Tachibana-san." Shinji repeated, hearing his captain on the other end. "I'm sorry I'm calling so late, but…it's Kamio, he was beaten up really bad." Shinji's eyes narrowed, more in concern than in anger. The tips of his fingers brushed against the damp spot on his jersey. His fingertips were soon tinted with red.

"They're checking him right now, Tachibana-san. I found him on a back alley…it looked really bad…" Shinji continued, the phone shaking lightly as he clutched onto it. "Yeah, I'll call them. Nambu Hospital. A-Ah." He nodded at the phone as he heard Tachibana Kippei hang up. 

Then he looked back down at the pay phone, turned, slid a few more coins in, and dialed another number. He listened. It rang. It rang again. Finally, a young voice was heard on the other end. _"Moshi moshi…"_ It was just a child.

"This the Kamio residence? Is your dad home?" Shinji's eyes narrowed once more, he couldn't tell Kamio's little sister what was going on. She'd just worry and cry.

_"Nu-uh, daddy's at work. Shinji-chan? Will you come over and play, Shinji-chan? I'm bored." _

"Sorry, I can't right now. Maybe later. But shouldn't you be in bed?" Shinji managed to keep his voice casual, fighting the urge to tell the girl this was the worst time to ask him to play. _She's just a little girl, come on. It's not her fault…_

_"Aww, okay. I guess I'll go to bed if you want me to, Shinji-chan. Bai bai!" _She hung up.

Even after the phone's continuous beep kicked in, Shinji continued holding it, staring down at it. 

"Shinji," The voice was soft from behind him, and weak. "It's okay, dad won't care."

The phone slipping from his grasp, Shinji turned around abruptly. To face Kamio. "_Kamio_—?!" His first reaction was surprise, apparently. But his second was a fine blend of concern and anger. "What're you _doing_?! A little while ago you were bleeding on the ground!"

His hands shot out to grab him by the shoulders and steer him back to some bed or other, but they stopped mid-air. Kamio's shoulder had been bleeding, proof of this was on Shinji's own jersey. 

Kamio gave this a nod. His face was covered in bruises and bandaged scrapes. And even though he was breathing a bit more easily, his breath was still weak and somewhat labored. 

Then his knees gave away from under him and Shinji's arms shot out reflexively, wrapping around him as carefully as the circumstances allowed before pulling him against himself supportively. Kamio just fell against him, almost limply. 

"Hey, why're you doing a stupid thing like this? What if you fell and hurt yourself some more?" Shinji questioned, holding him up with his own arms.

"My wrist's sprained…" was all Kamio said, unusually subdued. 

"_So_? At least it's not _broken_. What about your shoulder?" was Shinji's reply as he looked down at him.

"No…if my wrist's sprained I can't play…" Kamio continued, a shadow having fallen over his eyes.

"Oh…" Shinji saw Kamio's problem now. "Oh…Hey, so what? There're no tournaments for a while, you've got time to recover."

"I guess so. But I can't go practice in the morning—" Then his face snapped up, facing Shinji with a frightening rage. "Those _bastards_ from the street tennis courts! They were the ones! They said they wanted payback—so they called their whole gang." 

Shinji was looking down at him, studying his face. His own eyes were narrowed, the rage within them rivaling Kamio's. "We've got a whole gang, too." He said this in a cold, dark voice. But the rage left his eyes when Kamio's expression changed to a mix of surprise and understanding.

"Tachibana-san's coming by, he won't like seeing you straining yourself out on the hallway." As he said this, Shinji secured his arms around Kamio and lifted him off his feet. "Is there some bed you're supposed to be in?"

Kamio, surprise stubbornly remaining on his face, gave him a nod. "26E, down at the end of the hallway…" Dark red hair covering one eye, Kamio slowly looked up at Shinji with his other eye. 

Shinji was concentrating on finding 26E. As soon as he spotted it, his dark eyes returned to Kamio. His teammate's cheeks were a slight shade of red. Shinji blinked briefly, but didn't pursue it for the fear that his own cheeks would take on the same shade. Or maybe Kamio was just tired or something. Maybe not…

Soon, the hospital room's door was flung open by means of Shinji's foot. Then shortly, Kamio was lowered onto the bed, carefully, and Shinji pulled back to look down at him. "So, what about your shoulder?"

"That…it's just scraped, doctor said there was some strain on the cartilage but nothing serious."

"What about…?" Shinji's eyes flicked over the rest of Kamio's body.

"I'm bruised all over." Kamio replied, his one-eyed gaze following Shinji.

"Oh." Shinji gave him a nod, looking away as he slowly made his way over to the door, then back around the room some more. He'd started mumbling to himself.

Kamio watched, catching only snippets of mumbled words. "…shouldn't've…stupid idots'll…my fault it's…" 

Kamio had listened to his mumbling for years, even when Shinji lost he'd listened to his _"It's my fault I lost"_ mumbles, but _this_, this really _wasn't_ his fault. No matter _how_ you looked at it.

"Hang on, Shinji. It's not _your_ fault those idiots are too proud to take a loss." Kamio interrupted the mumbling, wondering briefly if it had been a wise thing to do so.

"Huh?" Shinji's head snapped up, his eyes fastening onto Kamio. "Oh."

"Well? And you found me when they left me for dead…Who the hell'd go in a back-alley so late at night besides _you_?" Kamio continued. His head hurt, and he gave this a brief wince.

It was the wince that caught Shinji's attention. "Hey, lie down and rest, will you?" 

Kamio gave him a light grin, complying. 

***

The next afternoon found Kamio lying in his bed at home. As expected, his father hadn't even inquired about him when he'd called and told his younger daughter he'd be coming home in the evening. 

Kamio's little sister, Chisa, was sitting on the edge of his bed, swinging her legs back and forth. "Ne, Kamio-niisan, when will you be better?"

He smiled at the petite girl, reaching his healthy hand out and patting her head. "Pretty soon."

Chisa beamed, her entire face lighting up. She had been so concerned over him, the poor thing. Kamio felt a tad guilty for dropping such worry on the eight-year old. But more than guilty he felt angry. Angry at those bastards. 

There was a knock on the front door after the doorbell rang, and Chisa quickly got up and scampered to go answer it. "Shinji-chan!" she squealed when she saw him, jumping up and down with her arms outstretched to him.   
He knelt and picked her up, grinning softly at her as he made his way across the house and through Kamio's wide open door. "Hey." He set the child down, walking up to the bed to look down at Kamio.

He sat up, greeting Shinji. His eyes followed his teammate as he took his seat at the edge of the bed. 

"Feeling all right?" Shinji asked.

Kamio gave him a nod. "I've got my rhythm back." He grinned lightly.

"Good, you need that." Then Shinji's smile turned into a pleased one. "We showed those losers not to mess with Fudoumine."

It was Kamio's turn to smile. They were so great, his team. It felt so good to be a part of them. It felt great. 

And, after all, a game—even one of payback—requires two parties…

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~ Owari ~


End file.
